AC Transit riders may face longer waits for buses for at least the
next 10 days after a judge failed to rule Tuesday on whether the
transit system could impose a contract on its workers.

About 20 percent of AC Transit's bus operators didn't show up for
work Monday and Tuesday after the transit system imposed a
cost-cutting contract on them Sunday, a spokesman for AC Transit
said.

An Alameda County Superior Court judge scheduled a full hearing
July 30 on the drivers' request for an injunction blocking the
imposition.

The no-show drivers stranded some riders and delayed others in the
transit system's service area from Richmond to Fremont. The high
absentee rate may continue during strained labor negotiations over
cuts to overtime, health insurance and other costs in the financially
struggling transit system, a spokesman said.

A Los Gatos pilot who ran an airplane ferrying service died on the
South Carolina coast when the plane he was flying crashed as he was
trying to land.

Dustin Rabe, 29, was coming in for a landing Monday at the East
Cooper Regional Airport in Mount Pleasant, S.C., when his plane
stalled and went down just short of the runway, killing him.

"He was my one and only son," said George Rabe, 54, a real estate
agent in Los Gatos. "I was aware every time he went up in the
air."

The Federal Aviation Administration says the plane crashed about
100 yards from the runway about 2 p.m. Monday. According to the elder
Rabe, his son was en route to Europe in a Comp Air 8 to deliver the
aircraft to a client in Holland.

Volkswagen is expanding its Silicon Valley lab where researchers
"design the cars of the future" - including driverless race cars and
vehicles that talk to one another.

Volkswagen of America has submitted plans to move its Electronics
Research Laboratory from Palo Alto to a much larger
157,000-square-foot empty office building in Belmont. Once there, they
plan to expand the work force from about 40 engineers and scientists
to more than 65, with the vision of surpassing a staff of 100.

Initially, the company will take up 40,000 square feet of space and
will move by the end of the year, Executive Director Burkhard Huhnke
said Monday.

The lab has simply outgrown its current office in the Palo Alto
hills, Huhnke said. In addition to an expanding work force, the
company needs more space for infrastructure to build prototypes of
vehicles that, if successful, will one day hit the market.

The San Francisco Police Department is investigating an incident
caught on video that shows an officer apparently forcing a handcuffed
woman face first into the pavement, the S.F. Chronicle said.

In the video, posted on YouTube, the belligerent woman - who police
said was drunk and pushing a baby in a stroller - shouts obscenities
at two Taraval station officers attempting to arrest her Sunday
afternoon.

The woman can be seen resisting both officers' efforts to place her
in the police car. The baby, left in the stroller on the sidewalk, can
be heard crying. The officers almost manage to get the woman into the
unit, but she pushes against the car and yells, "It's my baby in the
street!"

A Pennsylvania teenager who fell to his death Monday from a cliff
in Muir Beach was an honors student who planned to become a doctor,
according to local news reports.

The 17-year-old boy, identified Tuesday as Andrew Leonard Hicks Jr.
of West Chester, was entering his senior year at Henderson High School
in suburban Philadelphia, regional media reported. He was also a
volunteer at a local hospital.

Hicks fell 400 to 500 feet Monday afternoon from an informal path
off the Coastal Trail less than a mile south of Muir Beach, according
to the National Park Service. Hicks was on vacation with his parents
and three siblings, all of whom were nearby when he tumbled down the
cliff.

Hicks had taken the side trail in order to get a better view, said
Alexandra Picavet, a spokeswoman for the park service.

But for Vallejo residents who want to learn how convicted sex
offenders are dodging national registry listings, gangs are co-opting
everyday symbols, the newest household products are being converted
into hallucinogens and more, a special public event is scheduled
Wednesday.

"There are a lot of parents who are pretty naive, and a lot are
pretty savvy," said Vallejo police Detective Jason Potts, who expects
to provide information "not really in the news."

Potts, who will lead much of the discussion with a slide show
presentation, said Vallejo has its own trends in the gang and drug
arena.

Check in weekday afternoons for the P.M. Bay
Area Buzz, a summary of news from Bay Area News Group staff writers,
The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other wire services. Contact
George Kelly at 925-323-8318. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/allaboutgeorge.